We’ve heard some people actually like football season for the football, but we’ll be honest—we’re here for the tailgating, the picnics, the burgers, the wings, the nachos, the beers . . . all stuffed into our favorite (and biggest) coolers. Our coolers have it pretty rough. They get beat up, kicked around, left in the sun, used as kicking posts for your angry brother and resting stations for Uncle John’s bigger-than-average behind. Their task of keeping our beers cold for more than a couple hours sometimes seems impossible, and we usually end up bobbing for cans in a pool of lukewarm water that used to be ice. But fear not, thirsty comrades: There is hope in solar-powered coolers. Keeping Your Drinks (and That Klondike Bar You Hid for Later) Ice-Cold The solar-powered coolers invented by nipi can rest on hot pavement, the lawn, or underneath Uncle John on the hottest of days while maintaining a Coors-friendly “Cold as the Rockies” internal temperature. In fact, the nipi can keep ice cold for an astonishing six days. Bring on the overtime. The Brilliant Design and Concept of the Solar-Powered Cooler We’ve gotten used to a high-tech world and demanding high-tech solutions. By utilizing 3D printing, nipi’s solar-powered cooler stands with the best. The cooler’s main body, rigid tires, treads, and handles are all 3D printed using sturdy materials. Additionally, the cooler uses photovoltaic solar panels that can generate six watts of power and store that power in two 14,000-mAh lithium batteries. This technology enables the cooler to keep its contents cold, power its innovative lighting system, and charge electronic devices. Its solar panels are customizable, too, so users can have up to three panels on each cooler. With three panels, it is possible to fully charge a cell phone in about twenty minutes. But Wait . . . There’s More (and You Can Afford It) In addition to its four USB ports, self-draining cup holders, cutting board, and internal and external LED lights, the nipi cooler also features a waterproof storage area perfect for guarding anything you want to keep safe and dry. The initial Kickstarter campaign for nipi made the coolers available for $160. Compare this cost to a YETI Tundra 110 cooler, which holds the same number of beers (about 65), but sells for a staggering $499.99. New Launch Date Unfortunately, nipi announced in September that they’ve decided to cancel their campaign and launch an improved model next year. You can still follow their progress on social media. Do you have any suggestions for the new and improved cooler? Write them in the comments section beneath our...

Honey adds flavor to our foods and, more importantly, keeps our global ecology strong. As bees move from plant to plant collecting nectar for honey production, they do the important work of cross-pollination, which keeps 90% of the world’s plants and 30% of its crops alive. However, when you go to the grocery store and pull off the cheapest bottle of honey you can find, you probably aren’t taking advantage of all that honey has to offer. Oftentimes, this honey has been heated and pasteurized and therefore does not have the enzymes and compounds that make local, raw honey so nutritious. In fact, the latter can help treat dandruff, provide energy, and even build immunity to some seasonal allergies. Risks of Traditional Honey-Harvesting Methods Unfortunately, harvesting honey from a beehive isn’t the easiest job in the world. The average honeybee hive contains 20,000–30,000 bees that, even after being sedated, will usually do anything they can to protect their honey. Beekeeping suits help, sure, but there’s always the possibility that the bees will find an opening (or just skip that step and sting the keeper through his or her suit). A bigger issue with traditional methods of honey harvesting is that the process inevitably kills bees and is hugely disruptive to the colony. To get to the honey, keepers usually have to leaf-blow bees off of the combs, cut the combs off the bee box, and spin honey off the combs with an extractor. At the end of this messy process, even the most careful keepers inevitably kill more bees than necessary. An Innovative 3D-Printed Beehive Stuart and Cedar Anderson, a father-and-son team in Australia, have been working for more than a decade on methods to harvest local honey more easily and economically. They wanted to develop a way to increase production, decrease colony disruption, and mass-produce pure honey for a wider audience. Enter Flow. Using a 3D printer, the Andersons create frames using plastic that is both BPA-free (BPA is a chemical often used in making plastics. It can have a negative effect on brain function, especially in children and pregnant women). Flow’s plastic is also made of food-grade material, meaning it is free of toxins and not at risk for acquiring toxins. The New Honeybee Hive Design Flow is modeled after traditional bee boxes but with a few brilliant alterations. It has thousands of almost-complete honeycomb cells, which the bees seal with wax and then fill with honey. Much like a regular hive, the end result is a series of columns of honey-filled pockets. However, the columns in Flow are connected to a handle on the outside of the...

In many fantasy and sci-fi narratives, there’s a point where reality is pushed aside and a fantastical future is introduced. Often, this turn happens when the only way to solve the problem at hand is to utilize some amazing, futuristic technology. The 3D printing of medical device prototypes is, in a lot of ways, similar—when we encounter a problem, we can now think up and print out a solution. The only difference between our Star Trek-y fantasies and the 3D printing of medical devices is, of course, that 3D printing solutions are are a reality. Affordable 3D-Printed Hands for Amputees Using computer graphics of existing hands, Open Bionics hopes to make affordable, 3D-printed hands available for purchase in the next decade or so. The company’s ambition comes in part from their comprehensive understanding of how brain signals activate body parts. By utilizing specific materials in their printing, the company is able to create customizable, 3D-printed hands. The hands are completely functional. Similar to regular body parts, robotic hands are controlled via electrodes connecting them to a person’s brain. When we reach out to, say, pick up a cup, our brains automatically send electrical signals that tell our wrists to rotate, our fingers to splay open, and our hands to wrap around the cup. Robotic technology can now artificially recreate that bridge. As reported by The Mary Sue, it is now even possible to connect the electrodes in robotic arms to allow their users to actually feel what they’re touching. There are nearly 2 million people in the United States living and adapting to life as amputees. Open Bionics is determined to improve their quality of life by streamlining the bionic 3D-hand-printing process to be effective, precise, and economically viable. 3D Printing for Everyone In the early stages of 3D printing, a printed body part could cost someone hundreds of thousands of dollars. As 3D prototype printing is integrated with a wider range of materials (like advanced polymers and living tissue), it will be more plausible to mass-produce 3D-printed hands of all sizes, shapes, and designs. A new printed hand could someday be as affordable as a pair of designer shoes. Overcoming the Socio-Tech Gap Obviously, 3D printing has our attention. However, it is still a relatively new endeavor, and the majority of the public doesn’t know too much about it. We also recognize the trust gap, too—even though the technology is surely improving, a lot of us have a hard time believing 3D printing is as capable as it promises to be. Open Bionics believes that they’ll be able to create these fully functional 3D-printed hands in about...

3D printing technology has been available since the 1980s, but only recently have we seen it applied at an industrial capacity. In the past few years, 3D printing—sometimes called additive manufacturing or 3DP—has been used to construct apparel, medical devices, and even buildings. Now, the automotive industry has started to use the process to create 3D cars. 3DP vs. the Assembly Line: Racing for Pink Slips Henry Ford’s moving assembly line, implemented in 1913, revolutionized the industry and simplified mass production. However, over a hundred years later, the process for manufacturing automobiles remains largely unchanged. The now-dated system is expensive, requires extensive labor, and wastes an enormous amount of energy—even when building the “greenest” vehicles. This may all come to change very soon. A 3D printer, which is essentially a sophisticated industrial robot, manufactures an object from a digital file. The object is created by successively layering material until the entire object is created. 3D printing can be done with metals, plastics, and composite materials. The automobile industry has used 3D printing primarily for prototyping, so while there are a number of prototypes out there, they’re still mostly just ideas. Now though, some companies are using 3D printing to produce cars that are actually ready for a mass market. Swedish manufacturer Koenigsegg has produced a run of 300 high-performance vehicles with parts manufactured through 3D printing. 3D Printing and the Radical Reshaping of the Auto Industry Free from the assembly line, 3D printing promises to drive the future of automobiles and automated manufacturing facilities. Cars of the future will look different, obviously, but the real differences that 3D printed cars will offer include: Greater customization (e.g., built-in legroom for a taller car owner, orthopedic cushions for a driver with back problems, or a wider driver’s seat for a heavier driver.) Streamlined production (e.g., no excess scrap metal or material, fewer steps between concept and production, and less total material needed per vehicle.) Weight and safety (e.g., 3D printed cars are built with solid exteriors but honeycomb-lattice interiors, which increases safety and makes them lighter than today’s vehicles.) Energy efficiency (i.e., 3D printing saves significantly more energy than traditional manufacturing.) Car Manufacturing: A Numbers Game 3D printing may eventually level the automotive playing field to allow a new wave of companies to compete with larger manufacturers. The up-and-coming printing company, Divergent Microfactories, claims that their plants can produce up to 10,000 vehicles a year (compare to the 460,338 vehicles produced at Ford’s top-producing factory in 2011); small companies’ production capacities and competitive edge will increase as their technology improves. So, what do you think? Would you buy a 3D printed...

MX3D, a Dutch research and development organization, is working in partnership with several companies including Autodesk, and Lenovo, to make their ambitious 3D printing project a reality. The combined talents of these firms will attempt to construct a pedestrian bridge across a canal in Amsterdam using 3D printing technology. The engineers at MX3D have worked to create robotic printers that will be capable of executing the job autonomously. The robotic printers’ six-axis arms have welders on each tip that will essentially “draw” the steel structure from each side of the canal. 3D robotic printers use various types of metals, such as aluminum, bronze, copper, or steel for construction. The printers create the structures in the air without the need of traditional support structures, such as scaffolding because the builds are sequential and can be constructed in any direction. The MX3D printing technology will differ from current 3D printing technologies in the sense that it prints “outside the box.” Currently, 3D printed objects are limited by the size of the printing space. Large objects are printed piece by piece and assembled later. By utilizing this new six-axis robotic approach, neither design nor function will be hampered or confined to a square box. The robotic application will take 3D printing to a whole new level of design, and the potential for the MX3D application is limitless as it enables 3D printers to produce practical, life-size constructs. Engineers expect that construction will begin by 2017. There were a some growing pains during the developmental stage of the printers. MX3D engineers have dealt with the printers generating “worm-like” globs, welding machine explosions, clogged nozzles, and the robot got disoriented. Multiple testing sessions finally produced an operational robotic printer that was able to create the structures. The bridge structure is designed by Autodesk project engineers and will employ a proprietary software program. It will synchronize with the technical development of the bridge, giving due consideration to the bridge’s location. The completed bridge will be 24 feet in length, made of a steel composite created at the University of Delft, and will have a superior tensile strength. It will also be functional and is expected to handle normal foot traffic. MX3D envisions a time in the not too distant future when advances in future technology will foster the development of robotic concrete printers too, in the hopes that the 3D printing of significant structures such as buildings will be possible....

Imagine printing a solar cell in a matter of minutes. Some business owners may think it sounds like something out of a science fiction story, but 3D printing is developing with ever-expanding capabilities including the possibility for 3D-printed electronics. The technology isn’t perfect yet, but researchers are hard at work developing ways for printers to create nanotech components from synthetics. These so-called organic electronics rely on highly conductive materials that break the production mold. A team of researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California and Technische Universität München (TUM) in Munich have been working to identify and improve upon the electrical properties of synthetic films. The TUM team recently reported that razor-thin polymer electrodes can be created on 3D printers using enhanced synthetic films. Researchers in California can be thanked for these enhanced films. The team at Lawrence Berkeley used X-ray radiation to alter the molecular structure of freshly printed synthetic layers and worked in conjunction with the TUM researchers to determine how different post-printing processes affected the films. The international team plans to publish their results in Advanced Materials, an industry trade journal. These new printing technologies are exciting, but more research is on the horizon. Making organic electronics is incredibly complex. The process will need to be closely observed and understood so that custom applications are possible in the future. Researchers are also working to perfect techniques to create the various layers in electronic components using only one process. This will increase convenience for manufacturers and will allow the large-scale use of 3D printing to create designer electronics. There’s a great deal at stake here for businesses. Projected future markets for these technologies include solar cells, RFID tags, touch screens, glowing films and flexible displays. With future projects in development, such as wallpaper made of OLEDs, it is not surprising that organic electronics are expected to make a big impact on the consumer market thanks to this incredible range of applications. Of course, the ability to print designer electronics on a 3D printer also significantly increases prototyping and bespoke design capabilities for small businesses. Instead of blowing their research and development budgets on electronics manufacturing, businesses will be able to print components in house for immediate testing. It may seem a distant dream now, but the enthusiasm of researchers in California and Munich indicates that printed electronics are closer than many might...